site.btaAugust 12, 1965: First National Folklore Festival Opens in Koprivshtitsa

On August 12, 1965, the First National Folklore Festival was opened in the western town of Koprivshtitsa. It took place in the area called Voyvodenets and lasted four days, until August 15.

Following the successful regional folklore gatherings in the early 1960s, the idea to organize a nationwide festival emerged in 1963 within the Committee for Arts and Culture. The cultural event aimed to showcase Bulgaria’s rich heritage of folklore, traditional crafts, applied arts, and unique customs from various regions of the country.

A total of 4,000 participants took part in the festival, including performers of Bulgarian folk songs, dances, and melodies, bearers of folk customs, and masters of traditional crafts. Bulgarian life and traditions were presented on six different stages, as well as in the hall of Koprivshtitsa’s Lyuben Karavelov School.

The most distinguished participants were awarded medals and certificates, announced by the honored People’s Artist Filip Kutev during the festival’s closing ceremony.

The festival was attended by thousands of Bulgarians and guests from the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, the USA, Argentina, among other countries.

More than 30 official foreign guests also attended the First National Folklore Festival in Koprivshtitsa — musicologists, choreographers, ethnographers, and artists.